This invention relates to a connectionless oriented communications network, more particularly to control of routers forming part of such a network.
Connectionless communications networks with quality of service (QoS) guarantees need to be capable of offering different types of network services to provide the users of the network services with the choice of different levels of service guarantees along with different pricing structures. The challenge of the network operators is configuring and managing their networks in order to cater to such types of services. Service configuration in term of either a xe2x80x9cper flowxe2x80x9d (i.e. application to application or user to user flows) or xe2x80x9caggregatexe2x80x9d (i.e. a collection of such flows) basis requires configuring each router of the network with specific configuration information. This configuration information differs depending on the router""s type, make, model and router""s operating system. Thus, if different types of router are used in a particular network, complications arise, since the network operator, whether human or machine, would be required to know the different implementations of packet handling mechanisms of each router in order to configure a service through the network. This problem has caused network providers to use or select routers from a single manufacturer, leading to choice restriction and inflexibility.
It is an object of the invention to provide communication apparatus that alleviates this problem.
According to the invention, there is provided a connectionless oriented communications network having a plurality of internet protocol network routers for forwarding network packets and controllable by a service controller, the service controller being arranged to configure a service across the network by configuration of at least some of the routers, router configuration instructions to determine packet forwarding behaviour sent from the service controller to the routers being in a common form and each router having associated therewith means for translating the common form instructions into configuration commands specific to that router.
The present invention provides a connectionless oriented communications network which allows IP routers of any make and operating system to be used together in a network and configured in the same manner by a service controller using the common form instructions.
Preferably the configuration instructions comprise a first command reserving resources on the router and a second command committing the resources, the configuration information being derived from the commands only upon receipt of the second command. This allows a soft booking of resources to be made on each router so that router resources are not over committed before the requested service is actually configured.
Preferably, the translation means comprises a command template which includes commands for configuring the router in accordance with the configuration instructions.
Most preferably, each router includes means for providing local admission control which may a table of committed and reserved resources of the router and means for calculating further resources to be used in configuring a further service through that router.
Local admission control enables each router to make its own decisions concerning its ability to allocate resources and particularly allows at least one further service controller to be provided, with the service controllers being able to configure the routers independently.
Preferably, at least one said router is an IP version 4 or above.
The routers preferably split their resources using logically separated bit pipes and have an operating system, network resources being partitioned and admission controlled by the operating system.
Each configuration instruction is preferably identified by a unique identifier and each configuration instruction preferably determines packet forwarding behaviour independent of any other configuration instructions so that different configuration instructions can give rise to different packet forwarding behaviour.